The recruitment sector in Scotland covers a variety of specialist areas of expertise which are spread over a range of industries. Many recruiters will spend years developing and focussing on a particular sector where they can develop a strong network, knowledge base and reputation for being a recruiter of choice for related clients and candidates. Furthermore, the focus can be even more niche with concentration on a particular element within a sector, although this only lends itself well to the larger sector such as Financial Services, Oil & Gas, IT etc. This can often result in the recruiter being perceived as a professional within both their industry of focus and in recruitment, which can often open up further career options.

However, there are a range of recruiters who will cover multi sectors for a number of reasons. It may be that the recruitment business is geographically based in a location where there has to be cross sector focus to gain business levels, or is a small company who have a strategy which they see as more recession proof by covering multiple sectors, however this does run the risk of proving more difficult to gain a high number of close client and candidate relationships. Additionally, there are many Executive Search firms who will have an executive level approach across several sectors due to the demand being more weighted towards the commercial experience rather than the sector focus.

The sector focus within recruitment covers a wide range of areas, and will include but not be limited to: Oil & Gas/Energy; Manufacturing & Technology; IT; Financial Services; Accountancy & Finance; Legal; HR; Sales & Marketing; Medical.